A Look Ahead: DESIGNATION in 2016

So right off the bat, let’s start with some important news that effects all interested DESIGNATION participants.

Effective January 1st, 2016, the tuition for the DESIGNATION Full-Stack Design program will be $11,800. Any student who is accepted into the program and pays their enrollment deposit before that date will qualify for the 2015 tuition of $9,800, regardless of the start date of their cohort.

At the end of the day, the reason for the tuition increase is simple: so we can keep making the program better. Over the past 18 months, we have run 11 full cohorts (with an additional 3 currently in progress), graduated over 150 students, launched a ton of new careers, designed (or redesigned) hundreds of apps, websites and services, and gone through what feels like a metric ton of Post-Its. We also moved from our humble classroom in Lincoln Park to the heart of Chicago technology and start-ups, 1871.

We also hired Chicago design veteran Mike Joosse to lead our alumni hiring initiative. With such a well connected and dedicated team member working full-time to connect students with new careers, the reach of our program is going to grow exponentially. And we were already doing a fantastic job placing students at top-notch companies like Microsoft, IBM, United, and more.

Looking ahead, we have some really exciting new developments planned. The first and most important of which is to hire another rock-star full-time instructor to work in conjunction with Curriculum Director Won You. Smart, experienced, tech-savvy design instructors are the very heart of the DESIGNATION experience, and we will continue to hire the very best talent for our students to work and collaborate with in our vibrant classroom environment.